Sunday, August 26, 2012

BISHOPS AT WAR

Bishops at War

Joaquin G.
Bernas, S.J.

In
the wake of the controversy about the RH Bill a couple of bishops have gone to
war against university professors and in the process have issued dire warnings
against universities themselves. They threaten stripping universities of the
title Catholic. I doubt that the
bishops were thinking about what is happening to the Pontifical Catholic
University of Peru because there is only one Pontifical Catholic University in
the Philippines, and it is not the Ateneo. At any rate, are the bishops waging
a just war? I will not attempt to answer that question. I will simply say that the professors
and the universities can take care of themselves.

But,
as election time approaches, there is also a threatening war against defenders
of the RH Bill who might dare run for public office in the coming
elections. And since we, and not
only bishops, are interested in the Church teaching on church and politics, we might all learn something from
what a young Jesuit colleague of mine has put together in a piece from which I
will freely quote or paraphrase.
(Let this mention of my young colleague count as the required
acknowledgment of sources needed to avoid accusations of plagiarism!)

Will
a holy war against candidates who support the RH bill get the support of
Benedict XVI? In Deus est Caritas Benedict XVI emphasized
the old Catholic teaching that the formation of a just society as a political
task is not a direct duty of the Church; this task belongs properly to the
laity. The role of the Church is indirect: to purify reason and inspire ethical
political participation leading to the building of a more just society.

The
CBCP itself as a plenary body does not endorse nor disapprove candidates, but
it allows individual bishops to do so. Such a two-level approach to granting or
denying political blessings to candidates may prove to be confusing for
Filipino Catholic voters who usually identify the statements and actions of
individual bishops as the moral position of the entire hierarchy. But that is
the price we pay for freedom of expression which, when not properly used by a
church leader, can work even against the Church itself.

It
is also good to recall what the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines PCP2
taught. My young colleague shared
these quotations from PCP2:

“The public defense of gospel values,
however, especially when carried into the arena of public policy formulation,
whether through the advocacy of lay leaders or the moral suasion by pastors, is
not without limit. It needs emphasizing, that, although pastors have the
liberty to participate in policy debate and formulation, that liberty must not
be exercised to the detriment of the religious freedom of non-communicants, or
even of dissenting communicants. This is a clear implication of Vatican II’s
Dignitatis Humanae. This is not just a matter of prudence; it is a matter of
justice. “

There may even be some Catholic believers
who in all honesty do not see the truth the way the Church‘s magisterium
discerns, interprets, and teaches it. In such a situation, the Church must
clearly and firmly teach what it believes is the truth and require its members
to form their consciences accordingly. Yet the church must also, with all
charity and justice, hold on to its doctrine on religious freedom -- that the
human person is bound to follow his or her conscience faithfully, and must not
be forced to act contrary to it.”

When
a bishop tells his pro-RH Bill congressional candidate that his diocese will
campaign against him or her in future elections, the bishop is no longer
seeking to persuade the legislator about the reasonableness of the Church’s
position but rather the bishop is simply appealing to the legislator’s instinct
of self-preservation. Such a tactic is counter-productive to the formation of a
kind of politics that is based on principles because it reinforces a way of
practicing politics that values expediency rather than service, justice, and
the common good.

Besides,
the threat against candidates would be meaningful if there were such a thing as
a Catholic vote. The CBCP itself, in its Catechism on Church and Politics for
the 1998 elections, had denied the existence of a Catholic vote: “there is
generally no such thing as a ‘Catholic vote’ or ‘the Bishops' candidates’. This
is simply a myth. It still is
today.

The
CBCP Catechism provided for an extraordinary exception when a prelate can order
the lay faithful to vote for one concrete political option:

This happens when a political option is
clearly the only one demanded by the Gospel. An example is when a presidential
candidate is clearly bent to destroy the Church and its mission of salvation
and has all the resources to win, while hiding his malevolent intentions behind
political promises. In this case the Church may

authoritatively demand the faithful, even
under pain of sin, to vote against this particular candidate. But such
situations are understandably very rare.

The
CBCP intended this exception to be used only on rare and grave occasions such
as when the survival of the Church and its mission would be at stake. I doubt
that the CBCP would apply this to a bishop’s desire to apply political pressure
on a legislator to vote against the RH Bill.

2 comments:

"Religious freedom is not a moral license to adhere to error," nor should it be viewed as "an implicit right to error." (Compendium, No. 421) (citing CCC 2108)

Conscience is ordered to the truth and to good, ultimately God who is the source of both truth and good.

Properly understood, therefore, freedom of conscience and of religion "is not of itself an unlimited right." (Compendium, No. 422)

"The just limits of the exercise of religious freedom must be determined in each social situation with political prudence, according to the requirements of the common good, and ratified by the civil authority through legal norms consistent with the objective moral order." (Compendium, No. 422)

Dear Father Bernas,The prince of darkness acted as a suavely dressed, courteous young man and went into Padre Pio’s confessional… This is beloved St. Pio’s own account: “One day, while I was hearing confessions, a man came to the confessional where I was. He was tall, handsome, dressed with some refinement and he was kind and polite. He started to confess his sins, which were of every kind: against God, against man and against the morals. All the sins were obnoxious! I was disoriented, in fact for all the sins that he told me, but I responded to him with God’s Word, the example of the Church, and the morals of the Saints. But the enigmatic penitent answered me word for word, justifying his sins, always with extreme ability and politeness. He excused all the sinful actions, making them sound quite normal and natural, even comprehensible on the human level.. He continued this way with the sins that were gruesome against God, Our Lady, the Saints, always using disrespectful round-about argumentation. He kept this up even with with the foulest of sins that could be conjured in the mind of a most sinful man. The answers that he gave me with such skilled subtlety and malice surprised me. I wondered: who is he? What world does he come from? And I tried to look at him in order to read something on his face. At the same time I concentrated on every word he spoke, trying to discover any clue to his identity.. But suddenly; through a vivid, radiant and internal light I clearly recognized who he was. With a sound and imperial tone I told him: “Say long live Jesus, long live Mary!” As soon as I pronounced these sweet and powerful names, Satan instantly disappeared in a trickle of fire, leaving behind him an unbearable stench.” AS PADRE PIO DESCRIBED THE ENIGMATIC PENITENT "He excused all the sinful actions, making them sound quite normal and natural, even comprehensible on the human level." YOU, THE PRO-RH AND ALL YOUR EXPLANATIONS ARE COMPATIBLE WITH THE PENITENT.